Recognizing the device being used by an employee, consumer or another user is helpful in many applications. For example, recognizing the device can help the server to better present its content (e.g., different presentations suit mobile devices, tablets and desktop devices), provide better statistics on site traffic, and personalize the user-experience without having to identify the user.
In the security domain, such as Information Technology (IT) security systems and financial anti-fraud systems, device detection can serve as a powerful tool that aids in identifying the user and detecting impersonation attacks. In addition, device detection can serve as an additional valuable feature that makes risk assessment more accurate and with a reduced false positive rate. For example, an identity claim that is generated by a device that the user has never used before is more probable to be a fraudulent transaction, or an impersonation attack, especially when there are additional indicators that support this conclusion. On the other hand, reliable device detection can be used to increase usability by not asking the user for his or her credentials if the user is connecting from his or her regular device and several other features also have their expected value, e.g., the user's location, Internet Service Provider (ISP) and transaction time.
Existing adaptive authentication systems typically use device identification as part of a risk assessment process. Device detection is typically applied on the basis of the device features, such as installed applications, hardware characteristics and configuration values. Unfortunately, these features often change over time which makes device detection a challenging task.
A need therefore remains for improved device detection techniques.